VA:McAuliffe’s Narrow Victory Comes in Spite of Bloomberg’s “help”

Victory has a thousand fathers, as the saying goes, while defeat is always an orphan. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is making sure everyone knows he has a claim for paternity when it comes to the narrow victory won by Democrat Terry McAuliffe in Virginia’s gubernatorial race.
Bloomberg hit the cable-news airwaves

the day after the Virginia election to argue McAuliffe’s narrow victory was proof the state’s voters were swayed by the $1.2 million he spent on TV advertisements 

pushing gun control measures during the last days of the race. There’s just one problem. In the two weeks after Bloomberg got involved in the race by airing wildly misleading ads

, Republican candidate Ken Cuccinelli made a tight, competitive race out of what once looked to be a blowout. When Bloomberg’s Independence USA PAC started airing ads that earned three Pinocchios 

from the Washington Post, McAuliffe was up 10 points in the polls and seemed on his way to an easy victory. By the time the final votes were counted, McAuliffe ended up winning by less than three percent. McAuliffe actually trailed Cuccinelli for much of the night on Election Day. This chart helps tell the tale.

More Here